Can't We Just Buy The Tomatoes?

Oh Flower!

I'm tired of and bored with gardening already and it isn't even Memorial Day yet!

There is a line in The African Queen that has been a guidepost for me my whole life. Katherine Hepburn tells Humphrey Bogart that, "Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put on Earth to rise above." 'Rise above' is too superior for my outlook I would have changed those words to 'keep outside', but I think you get where I'm going.

 I am not the least bit nature-y. I can appreciate the beauty of it, the majesty, the wonder, the power, the diversity but I do not want to be around it or have it touch me. True. I don't actually have any real interest in it either. I enjoy the occasional factoid or story about nature but I do not seek either of those things out. I do care about the environment. Recycling, re-using, conserving, supporting manufacturers who use less packaging and produce their goods in energy efficient and green ways, buying local---I do all that with a dedicated consciousness. However none of that means that I want to go camping or pet a puppy or smell a flower.

 Nature and I live on different planets. I live on planet Inside and Nature lives on planet Outside. Every day I have to suit up and travel through and work in Outside but I do not live there. On Inside I have a home, friends, restaurants, theaters, museums, books and book stores (independent ones), yarn stores, television, many things. Outside I have small children sporting events ~~shudder~~, walks (That's a whole other ball of wax), squirrels and gardening. Is it any wonder I want to stay on my planet?

Gardening represents the very worst of Outside for me. I adore that other citizens do it with such ardor. They make beautiful spaces but I hate having to garden. Would that I were able to cover my yard in asphalt. Save the disgust. That is not going to happen. It's not good for the world and my Father would be very, very unhappy. Daddy is why I garden. He's 86, a fabulous Father and good person who loves fresh vegetables, trees and flowers. The trees and flowers part of the equation are terrifically independent and do a lot of their own up keep but those damn $%#&*%# vegetables are a huge  $%&*$@ thorn in my side.

This morning the tomatoes plants were planted. They are in the soil and with luck and w-o-r-k there will be many right off the vine tomatoes for Daddy. Great. I am thrill for him and pleased that I can help to make his eating more pleasurable but I still hate it and bitch about it incessantly behind his back.

 A friend who obviously has me confused with someone else she knows told me that when Daddy is gone I'll miss having a vegetable garden for him. ...Um...no. I will miss him as a hilariously funny and loving Father, as a man who others like and respect but the tomato loving side of him? Not so much.

Happy